Rodney Harrison insists the helmet catch in the Super Bowl four years ago doesn’t still haunt him, but he’s reminded of it daily.

In his home office, he keeps a book, “The Greatest Moments in Sports,” that his son gave him for Christmas a couple of years ago. Harrison is pictured on the cover grabbing David Tyree’s right arm while Tyree’s right hand presses the ball against his helmet.

Tyree somehow made what has become known as the “helmet catch” for a 32-yard gain to set up Eli Manning’s touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left that gave the Giants a 17-14 victory and deprived the Patriots of a 19-0 season.

“Every time I walk in my office, I see it,” a laughing Harrison said yesterday of the book, “so I’m reminded of it every single day, but it doesn’t haunt me.”

Harrison said he has no regrets because he did everything he could to try to break up the pass.

“If you ask this guy to make this catch a million other times, he doesn’t make it,” Harrison said. “So it was just one of those things that you look at and say, ‘Wow, no matter what I could have done, he was going to catch that ball.’ It was just meant to happen.”

Expect the helmet catch to be shown on television quite a bit over the next couple of weeks while the Patriots prepare to play the Giants in a Super Bowl rematch on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis. Harrison will be in studio for NBC, which will televise the game.

Although only seven Patriots remain from that Super Bowl loss of four years ago, those seven include Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Vince Wilfork, and Harrison believes they’ll be extra motivated.

“I believe there’s some bitterness,” he said. “Now, the Patriots won’t come out and admit to it and (coach Bill) Belichick won’t admit to it. He’ll defer that action somewhere else. However, if I was still on that team, I would be bitter, I would be ticked off, and I would want my revenge, plain and simple.”

As far as Harrison is concerned, Super Bowls don’t get any bigger than this one.

“It’s Boston versus New York,” he said, “it’s the Red Sox versus the Yankees, it’s all those different rivalries, but it’s also taking away something that could have been special, more special than just a 16-0 season, taking away history. Had a chance to be considered the greatest team of all-time, and the Giants took that away.”

Brady has said he hasn’t watched a tape of that Super Bowl loss, and Welker said he has watched only bits of it.

“That tells you that there’s still rage, there’s still anger there,” Harrison said. “I think there is some carryover on the Patriots’ side.”

Harrison played strong safety for six seasons for the Patriots and helped them win their last two Super Bowl championships, but in his job as an NBC analyst, he’s not afraid to criticize his former team.

“I just feel like if I can’t be fair to myself first and to the fans,” Harrison said, “it’s no need for me to even do this job.”

Harrison ripped the Patriots’ secondary and even took a couple of jabs at Brady and Belichick.

“I felt like this was the worst secondary that the Patriots have had in the last decade,” Harrison said. “I felt strongly about that because what I saw was something that I didn’t think Belichick would tolerate, and that was a bunch of miscommunication, blown coverages, deep balls over the safety’s head, and it just didn’t seem like the young guys were competing on the level you need to compete on to really be a good secondary, and I was very, very disappointed.”

Harrison believes the secondary has improved during the playoffs, but he’s still not very impressed. He doesn’t think it’s any big deal if cornerback Kyle Arrington can’t play against the Giants after missing the second half against the Ravens with an eye injury.

“I don’t think it’s devastating,” he said, “because I’m not totally sold on these cornerbacks. If he’s missing, is it like missing a Darrelle Revis? No.”

Of safety James Ihedigbo, Harrison said, “I like the kid, but he’s really a special-teams player. He’s not outstanding. He’s serviceable, if that’s what you want in your secondary. He’s not great. He works hard and he’s a good team player and all those things, but he’s nothing that you’re going to leave a good game saying, ‘You know what? That No. 44 is something special.’ ”

Harrison likes safety Patrick Chung the most of New England’s defensive backs, but he was disappointed in Chung’s leadership against Baltimore last week. Harrison doesn’t think it would be wise to put Julian Edelman, the receiver who moonlights as a defensive back, on Giants receiver Victor Cruz, especially after Edelman struggled covering Baltimore’s Anquan Boldin.

Harrison admits he was more surprised the Patriots cut his former teammate, safety James Sanders, than safety Brandon Meriweather during preseason because he found Meriweather to be inconsistent and immature.

“James Sanders was a huge surprise for me,” Harrison said. “I really think that was a big mistake by Belichick.”

Sanders signed with Atlanta, and the Falcons’ defensive coordinator told Harrison he loved Sanders’ work ethic and consistency. “I guarantee you if James Sanders was back there,” Harrison said, “I just don’t believe you’d have some of those screw-ups that you had this year.”

Harrison believes the pressure is clearly on the Patriots, especially on Brady.

Brady threw only three interceptions while winning his first 10 playoff games, but he has thrown 16 while going 6-5 in his last 11 postseason games. Harrison blames part of Brady’s falloff on playing with less-experienced teammates. Brady’s sideline argument with offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien told Harrison that the weight of carrying the burden is wearing on him.

“He feels like if they don’t score 30 points, they won’t win,” he said.

“At times,” Harrison said, “you don’t see the poise that you’re used to seeing, but I still think Tom is a fantastic player, but I think he needs to release that burden and trust his teammates a little bit more. When you start trusting your teammates more, then you allow them to go out and do their job and don’t feel like you have to do everyone else’s job.”

Harrison still gives Brady an edge over Manning.

“Not by much,” he said. “There’s a lot of time when you go into a game, and Brady is the best quarterback hands-down, and in this game, I don’t know if I can say if he’s the best quarterback hands-down because Eli has been very consistent, he’s been clutch in the fourth quarter, and that’s how you rank great players — how they perform in critical moments — and Eli’s been fantastic.”

Harrison analyzes the NFL the same way he played it — full speed ahead with no hesitation.

“This is kind of who I am,” he said. “As a player, if I messed up, my mom always taught me, ‘Hey, stand up, stand up to the music.’ And if you messed up, say you messed up and talk about the things that you need to improve on and always be accountable, and that’s what I try to do. I try to be fair with everyone.”